He can put on team on his back and fill the net on his own or he can be the playmaker, setting up fellow attackers Tyler Krampf and Myles Ackerson or midfielder Lane Meyer. He switches between the roles easily when the flow of the game requires him to do so. He won’t be found in the same spots on the field game to game and he almost is never seen standing and waiting for a play to happen.

The only constant is his excellence.

Hopewell featured the most prolific offense in the CVC as the only local squad to have three players with more than 40 goals each and Moore played a huge role in making that offense go. He was the CVC’s leading scorer with 50 goals and a league-high 58 assists. His versatility in how he menaced opposing teams makes the junior The Trentonian’s Boys Lacrosse Player of the Year.

Advertisement

“I think what separates him from most kids in the area is that he can dodge on the run, feed on the run and shoot on the run,” Hopewell coach Rob Siris said. “When you look at someone who is college bound, that is a skill that is essential as far as doing everything in motion and doing it at full speed.”

“It’s very rare that we scored and Brady wasn’t a part of it,” Siris added.

His transformation from a 40-point sophomore into a 108-point, school record setting attacker involved more than just a positional change. There was changing how he shot the ball, which wasn’t a new idea, but this season was the first time the idea really stuck.

“I’d say listening to coach works, high-low shooting, he preaches that and last year, I didn’t do a good job listening and putting it on the field,” Moore said. “This year, I was more receptive to that and playing with and against some very good lacrosse players in the offseason helped a lot.”

“I think Brady is good example of what happens when you listen to your teachers and listen to your coaches, sometimes it’s the simple things,” Siris said. “One thing that changed dramatically was shooting high to low, sometimes as a sophomore, it’s enticing to hit that top corner, the bottom line is the ball went in the net a lot of times this year — the numbers don’t lie,”

Moore entered the season verbally committed to Division I Jacksonville University and for any high school junior, it’s a relief not having to worry about what happens after high school.

“All my friends are worried about what school they’re going to go to and I kind of know what I have to do and only have to apply to one school,” Moore said. “It’ll be especially nice this summer because there’s no pressure and I can just go out and have fun,”

When discussing Moore’s game, the talk centers around lacrosse I.Q., which Moore describes as the sense of where and when to be in the right spots on the field, not only to help himself, but his teammates and among other skills, being able to dodge and shoot. It does not involve standing and being a “catch and shoot” type of player.

“I just try and let the game come to me, when you start thinking, ‘I have to be a scorer or a feeder,’ it starts to mess with you,” he said. “I just look for whatever is open and just go with it.”

Siris can attest to Moore’s lacrosse I.Q. through his commitment to watching the game, be it high school film or college lacrosse, but as Moore goes from junior to senior, he could boost the team’s collective lacrosse I.Q.

“Brady has learned a lot about the game of lacrosse through watching and playing the game,” Siris said. “His next step as a leader on the field is sharing that knowledge verbally with other people rather than just watching.”

An example of this is with Krampf, a sophomore, who tallied 47 goals and 31 assist alongside Moore, who likened him to Lance Whittaker, a player Moore had great chemistry with. Whittaker started some games for the Bulldogs as a freshman in 2012 and four games into the 2013 season, Whittaker’s lacrosse career came to an abrupt end as he suffered a concussion. It was later determined that he could no longer play contact sports and he spent this spring with Hopewell’s golf team.

“Next year with him as a junior should be big, because for me I took a big step as a junior,” Moore said.

Moore will enter 2015 as the first name on any scouting report and will be expected the lead the charge to try and get the Mercer County title back in Hopewell after a two-year stay in Princeton.

“For those who follow Mercer County lacrosse, it’s interesting to see a player go from a 40-point midfielder to 108,” Siris said. “When you watch other teams, you wonder if your own guys could start on their team. I think Brady is a guy that can start on any team in the state.”

***

Schubauer Coach of the Year

Neither the pressure of being a first-year head coach nor the loss of key contributors during the season to injury could faze Allentown’s Carl Schubauer and it showed in how his team performed in 2014.

His predecessor, Michael Kays, presided over the Redbirds’ emergence as a local lacrosse power and with Schubauer at the helm, that trend isn’t likely to change. By setting the bar pretty high for any future first-time coach and leading his team to its second consecutive Mercer County Tournament finals appearance, Schubauer is The Trentonian’s Boys Lacrosse Coach of the Year.

Here is first-team All-CVC squad:

Attack — Brady Moore, Hopewell Valley: Makes Jacksonville coach Guy Van Arsdale look like a genius for recruiting him as a sophomore. The CVC’s leading scorer has one more year with the Bulldogs before heading to Florida.

Attack — Brian McNutt, Allentown: Ends his high school career with 100 career goals. His next stop is Richard Stockton College.

Attack — Will Feehan, West Windsor South: An underrated playmaker who had 27 goals and 55 assists in his senior year.

Midfield — Kevin Halliday, Princeton: He’ll be remembered as a Mercer County Tournament hero with his game-tying goal with four seconds left in regulation and game-winner in the opening seconds of overtime in the MCT final. He joins his older brother, Zach, on the soccer field at Tufts.

Midfield — Lane Meyer, Hopewell Valley: The senior was a key cog in both the state champion football team and as a captain of the lacrosse team.

Long Stick Midfield — Jackson Andres, Princeton: Talked the talk and backed it up in the MCT. The junior will be critical piece for the Little Tigers next season.

Defense — Trevor Ferraro, Allentown: The senior stepped up big time when fellow All-CVC defender Mike Adler went down for the season.

Defense — Joe Hawes, Princeton: Turned in one of the most impressive individual defensive performances of the season as he held Hopewell’s Moore to just an assist in the MCT semis. The senior even added a couple of goals for the Little Tigers.

Defense — Nico Sferra, Notre Dame: The Irish running back on the football team also proved to be handy with the long pole. He’ll head to Montclair State.

Faceoff — Sean Kent, Hopewell Valley: Possessing the ball is key to winning in lacrosse. Winning faceoffs is key to possessing the ball. Hopewell Valley won a lot of games this season. Kent won a lot of faceoffs this season. These two things are related.

Goalie — Lyle Healy, Hopewell Valley: The sophomore looked like a veteran in his lacrosse debut. He’ll be another important returning underclassman for Hopewll.